


send you my love on the wire

by acetamide



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 05:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4167270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acetamide/pseuds/acetamide
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It feels strange, sometimes, that Erik will find the mutants and end up bringing them to Charles - but the rest of the time, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	send you my love on the wire

**Author's Note:**

> A birthday present for [endings](http://endingstheme.tumblr.com); technically a one-shot sequel to [Frühjahrsputz](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1744451), but can be read independently.

_I’m bringing one in._

_Now really isn’t a good time._

_It’s not a good time for me, either. I need to bring him in._

_Can it not wait a few more days?_

_It really can’t._

There’s nothing from the other end for what feels like forever, and in the pressing silence the sound of the cicadas in the hot evening air is deafening. There’s a haze over the farmland that stretches out to either side of him and rises up off the baked ground. A squeaking noise behind him makes him turn; one of the children has climbed into the tyre swing.

 _Fine_ , Charles finally says, and his tone is nothing less than begrudging. _Bring him to me_.

 

**

 

“It’s really not like you to turn a young mutant away, Charles,” Erik says mildly as he watches Charles brush his teeth in the mirror. “Not like you at all.”

“I wasn’t turning him away, it just wasn’t the best time. I’m sure you could have waited a few more days.”

Erik huffs out a half-laugh that he quickly stifles when Charles turns to glare at him fully, and raises his hands placatingly. “Look, I’m sorry, but you have spoken to the boy, haven’t you? He’s much more in your camp than mine, which was obvious from the moment I saw him. If he’d stayed with me much longer we might have lost him completely. I needed to get him to you.”

“I would say that you’re over-estimating your ability to piss people off, but I can say from first-hand experience that it’s impossible,” Charles says flatly and spits his toothpaste out.

“Really? And what did you do to piss Hank off that he literally ripped the whole of the porte-cochere down and apparently made a fair attempt at the entrance hall?”

When Erik had arrived at the mansion earlier that evening, it had been to find an enormous pile of rubble by the front door and an extremely sheepish-looking Hank holding a shovel in a nervous grip and staring at the heap as though he had no idea where to start. Erik managed to restrain himself enough to steer the new mutant, Sam, past the mound and into the house, and had privately congratulated himself on his own self-discipline and evident maturity.

Charles rubs at his face tiredly as he wheels past Erik into the bedroom. “It was a new strain of the serum – he’s still trying to perfect it, to create a version that will grant him his increased strength but without changing him physically. This version… well. His strength was off the scale and he acquired the violence and mindlessness to match it. I shut him down as soon as I noticed what he was doing, but he woke several times before the serum was out of his system. I’m just glad that he was back to normal before you and Sam arrived.”

“It’s a shame, really. I liked the porte-cochere.”

“Yes, but I’m sure we can rebuild it fairly easily,” Charles says absently and throws the covers back. It takes everything for Erik not to try to assist him as he hauls himself into bed; the first time, when Erik had insisted on helping and after very short argument that got louder with every sentence, he had suddenly found himself waking up the next morning in a crumpled heap on the floor, with a pounding headache where the percussive blast of Charles’ furious telepathic blow had knocked him out for nearly twelve hours.

He knows now not to help until Charles asks for it, so he just watches instead. Charles has never been skinny – multiple (unsuccessful) attempts to join the rowing teams at Oxford had seen to that – but now, his constant use of his arms to move himself around have resulted in upper body strength that could rival Erik’s. Lean and muscular is a good look on him. So is his shorter hair (thank _God_ he had let Erik cut it before he left the last time), and Erik is particularly partial to the short ginger beard that he’s retained and which clashes magnificently with his blue eyes.

“Erik, you know it makes me uncomfortable when you stare at me like that.”

“But you’re so nice to look at.”

Charles shoots him a withering look as he pulls the covers up with a little more force than necessary. Erik counters it with a shit-eating grin as he pulls off his shirt and throws it half-heartedly at the laundry basket in the corner before climbing into bed beside him.

“So this Sam…" 

“Guthrie.”

“Sam Guthrie. How old did you say he is?”

“Nineteen,” Erik says with a suppressed grunt as he shifts and Charles settles against his chest. “He’s got about twenty siblings or something, there’s loads of them.”

“Are any of them mutants too?”

“None have manifested, but they’re all younger, so they might do yet.”

“How did Sam manifest?”

“In a mining accident,” Erik says, and glances at the light switch; it clicks off and plunges the room into darkness. “The mine was collapsing, he grabbed the other guy in there and – _whoosh –_ flies on out of there like a cannonball.”

“Very impressive. Has he been flying since?”

Erik scoffs. “No. He said that he feels he needs _proper training_ before he’s ready to fly again.”

Charles chuckles against his chest, a rumble that reverberates through his ribcage and straight into the marrow of his bones. “Hmmm, you’re right, he does belong with me.”

Erik smiles in the dark and turns his head to bury his nose in Charles’ hair and inhale deeply. It’s still slightly damp from his shower and smells strongly of cedarwood and lime, and he shuffles and rolls onto his side so that he’s facing Charles in the low light.

“You were gone for nearly four months this time,” Charles murmurs, his eyes flickering over Erik’s face. “I know that you’ll never stay, but… it felt longer than normal, this time.”

He suddenly looks so vulnerable and tired and distressed that Erik has no response other than to lean forward and kiss him. It’s a very gentle, careful kiss – nothing like the ones that they shared before Cuba happened and everything came crashing down, passionate and hot and filthy and full of promise. It’s not like the ones after Paris, angry and hard and desperate and tasting of blood.

It’s something a lot quieter. It’s warm summer afternoons spent playing chess in the walled garden; it’s a school full of young mutants, eager to learn and unashamed of what they are. It’s lazy mornings in bed and warm evenings by the fire with a fine bottle of scotch and the promise of better things.

“It shouldn’t be so long, this next time,” he says as he pulls away. “I already have a lead on a girl in Boulder, Colorado. I don’t know yet if she’ll be for me or for you, but I’ll come home before the next one.”

“I can use Cerebro if you’d like, get a more accurate location for her?”

“If you can find time in your busy schedule, what with all of your students that need teaching…”

“Erik, there’s four of them.”

“Well you can hardly trust Hank with them.”

Charles grins and smacks him with surprising force.

“You were doing so well! You nearly made seven whole hours without insulting him!”

“Yes, but my target was to hold my tongue until midnight, and I’m fairly sure that I just felt the mechanism on the clock tick over.”

Charles laughs then, a pure and perfect sound, and Erik holds onto it for the months and years to come.

 

**

 

_end._


End file.
